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Opening April 10th, Regen Projects II presents a new body of work by Catherine Opie, Highschool Football. Opie turns her camera from surf culture toward American high school football, investigating the ways in which masculinity is constructed and re-enforced within regional communities.

(Catherine Opie, photograph from new series Highschool Football, 2008. Courtesy: Catherine Opie and Regen Projects II.)

Lives and Works: Talks with Women Artists, mixed media portraits, as well as Portrait of an Artist as a Young Girl: Fulfilling Society’s Limited Expectations, assemblages with text and commentary, both by Joan Arbeiter, open on April 11th at the Rutgers University Art Library. This show marks an extension of Arbeiter’s commitment to women’s history, particularly art history, into the realm of painting, her primary medium.

(Joan Arbeiter, “We have to start having more fun…” Joan Snyder, 1997. Courtesy: Joan Arbeiter and Rutgers University Libraries.)

Elke Krystufek’s A Film Called Wood woof Woolve Vulvahoodmoodsuperwoovertrooper opens April 11th at Transit Art Space. Last year Krystufek presented Dr. Love on Easter Island, a film featuring the character “She Bas” based on Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader. In this exhibition Krystufek introduces A Film Called Wood as the continuation of last year’s work as well as new paintings on various subjects.

(Elke Krystufek, Vaginanose (Max Raphael revisited), 2006. Courtesy: Elke Krystufek, Georg Kargl Fine Arts Vienna, (c) 2006 photo: MAK/Georg Mayer.)

Beginning April 15th, Galerie Mourlot presents Music of Silence: Metalpoint Paintings and Drawings, a solo show of work by Susan Schwalb. Schwalb employs the ancient technique of silverpoint drawing to create precise, fine lines. Though her work recalls minimalist abstraction, she has stated that her earlier, often representational, feminist-inspired work still serves as “an underlining basis for my creative thinking.”

(Susan Schwalb, red/white/blue IV, silverpoint acrylic on paper on wood, 2002. Courtesy: Susan Schwalb.)

April 16- 20th, check out Open Space at the Cologne Art Fair to see photography by British feminist artist Alexis Hunter. In her photography, Hunter has routinely inverted expected gender roles, ironically objectifying male subjects while allowing female subjects to actively confront the viewer.

(Alexis Hunter, one image of eight from series Approach to Fear: Pain-destruction of Cause, 1977. Courtesy: Alexis Hunter.)

Dawn Mellor’s Vile Affections remains on view at Spacex through May 3rd. Mellor’s gruesome paintings portray chosen celebrities and cultural icons as the leather-skinned surfaces to which they are so often reduced.

(Dawn Mellor, Morrissey, 2007. Courtesy: Dawn Mellor, Spacex, and Team Gallery New York.)

NEW ADDITIONS, continuing through June, features work by Jenny Scobel, Cristian Boffelli, and Peter Mayer at 5+5 Gallery in Brooklyn.

(Jenny Scobel, Untitled, 2008. Courtesy: 5+5 Gallery)

The LACK of Desire, featuring twenty-two up and coming Brooklyn artists, continues through April 11 at Brooklyn Arts Council Gallery.

(Joseph Shahadi, Garotte (sex doll), 2006, digital c-print, 20 x 30 inches card design: Misha Tyntyunik. Courtesy: Brooklyn Arts Council)

Feminist performance and video artist Tamy Ben-Tor continues her solo exhibition at Zach Feuer Gallery through May 3.

(Tamy Ben-Tor, Normal, 2006, DVD, 4:20 min. Courtesy: Zach Feuer Gallery)

Eva Davidova continues her exhibit at Magnan Emrich Contemporary Gallery in Chelsea through May 10.

(Eva Davidova’s Untitled (dani) (2005). Courtesy of Magnan Emrich Contemporary.)

**Special thanks to intern Lauren Nicole Nixon for helping to compile this week’s Picks!